Jubilee Post News & Views
#Alert over new variant of covid
#Tracking of passengers from abroad to begin in state
Jubilee News Desk
Lucknow: As Uttar Pradesh decides to test via RT PCR all those who came to the state from abroad after December 9, first list of 50 passengers coming from abroad reached Lucknow.
India has suspended all passenger flights connecting the United Kingdom from Wednesday till December 31. Union Health Ministry also issued a standard operating procedure advising states to ensure that passengers coming from the UK should undergo RT-PCR test and be isolated in a separate unit of an institutional facility if found positive.
“We are contacting passengers and will conduct the tests as per the guidelines,” said Dr MK Singh, incharge of the routine immunisation and covid in Lucknow. The Uttar Pradesh health department had sought details of travellers from UK who came back to their homes in the state.
“We will track all passengers who have come back from other countries,” said Dr DS Negi, director general medical health.
At least 22 people who came to India from the UK in the past few days have tested positive for COVID-19 amid alarm over a mutant strain of the coronavirus that is believed to be more contagious and was first identified in Britain. Samples of those who tested positive have been sent to specialised labs like the National Institute of Virology in Pune to determine if the infection is from the mutant coronavirus.
The health department had earlier tracked the migrant workers who returned from different parts of the country and were put in quarantine facilities for two weeks before being allowed to go home. “The rapid response teams and the covid sampling teams will also keep tab of travellers coming back home in urban and also rural areas,” said Dr Negi.
He said so far now no traveller was identified but the department will ensure if any detail is given from the aviation ministry the person is tracked, check for covid and observed for at least two-weeks.
All samples of passengers who arrive in India from UK that test positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will be re-tested through a spike gene-based reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test to look for the new variant of Sars-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19, according to the union ministry of health and family welfare.
Separate isolation facilities will be created for people who test positive, and those whose samples indicate the presence of new variant of Sars-CoV-2 after the genomic sequencing will continue to remain in the separate isolation unit
